


Nocturne

by eretria



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Character Study, F/M, Hotels, Sleeping Together, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vignette, post S1e12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 02:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15921398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eretria/pseuds/eretria
Summary: Aaron knows too much, knows her too well. She needs to get Cole and herself off the grid. Find a hotel. Pay in cash. Throw away her phone. Change the car. Do something Aaron doesn't expect. It’s like being in a spy novel, just lacking the fun because this is her life now.A look at Cassandra and Cole post season 1's "Paradox": Two people on the run, shaken, out of their depth, inches away from unravelling.





	Nocturne

He's awake and aware after the paradox, but weak as an infant. He's heavier than he looks, now that she has to half-carry him.

Cassandra leaves the ruined bookstore behind, thinks of calling the fire department and her insurance agent and chides herself at the same time. It's so predictable. So 2015. So normal.

Her life has stopped being normal thanks to the man now passed out in the backseat of her car yet it seems that her brain stubbornly holds on to what it knows, to what is safe.

She stops at the nearest Target to get him clothes. She knows his size by now, knows his clothing preferences. She throws in underwear for herself at the last minute.

She hates that the new clothes smell like chemicals. It feels like insanity squared, but she stops at a Laundromat, picks the quickest available cycle for washing and drying and stuffs everything she bought inside. After a moment's consideration, she adds her own shirt as well, glad that no one is at the Laundromat to see as she strips to her bra. Her leather jacket feels cool against her skin as she walks back to the car and waits in the driver's seat for the cycle to finish. From underneath the zipper, she smells the stink of her own sweat and fear.

Cole breathes evenly behind her and she forces herself to match her breathing with his. It's a technique to stave off panic attacks she'd perfected after her first outbreak and it has served her well ever since. Her breathing synchronizes with his as she watches the clothes spin in the washer through the Laundromat's window, giving her time to calm her racing thoughts.

Aaron knows too much, knows her too well. She needs to get Cole and herself off the grid. Find a hotel. Pay in cash. Throw away her phone. Change the car. Do something Aaron doesn't expect. It’s like being in a spy novel, just lacking the fun because this is her life now.

Cassandra checks her wristwatch and is surprised to find that three quarters of an hour have passed already. The load should be done by now. Cole’s jeans might still be a bit damp, but they can dry over a chair at the hotel later. At least the shirt and underwear should be dry. She stuffs everything back in the bag and fights the hysterical laughter that wants to bubble up over how domestic this is. Her clothes mixed with his.

***

She drives until she's too tired to, finds that she's already in a less than charming part of the city. The ageing prostitute in thigh-high white leather boots and a long blonde wig by the side of the street looks suspicious when Cassandra rolls down the window.

"I don't do threeways."

Cassandra holds out a hundred dollar bill. "Just tell me where the next by-the-hour motel is."

The tip gets her the route to one of the cleaner ones. She checks them in under a made-up name. After another hefty tip and several nights paid in cash, there are no questions asked and no ID's required. The room goes out to the parking lot, which is fortunate: she doesn't even need to get Cole, still wrapped in her blue TV blanket, past the bored-looking night-clerk.

Cole snaps awake when she touches his shoulder. "Where – "

"Come on," is all she says. She helps him out of the car and over the threshold into the room.

The room has a queen-sized bed and a decent sized bathroom with a bathtub. It's nothing to write home about and she already misses the coziness of the bookstore, but it's good enough for a night or two. They need to get their bearings before they meet up with Katharina Jones.

Cole sinks down on one of the chairs while she switches on the TV to a documentary channel. She's not interested in watching, just needs the white noise, needs to not have silence.

Cassandra sits on the bed, feels it dip beneath her. A spring squeaks. Cole's head snaps up; his eyes sharp on her.

She opens her mouth. Closes it again when she realises she doesn't have anything to say. She averts her gaze.

"There's a bathtub," she says, just to say something. Her gaze lands on the bag with the washed clothes. "If you want to – "

"Wash the sick stink off?" His tone is acerbic, if amused. 

She fights a snort. He had a seizure. His heart stopped. He's lived through a paradox, through having mother nature's furniture set up of his cells rearranged. A bit of body odor is the least of her concerns for him. "I think we're both far from being fragrant flowers."

"You should go first." So he noticed, huh? She’s no longer the clean-smelling woman he first met.

She shakes her head. "I'm going to grab some food. You must be starving." He hasn't eaten since he showed up bleeding out on her kitchen floor. Her now blown up kitchen. God.

He twitches her a half-smile that makes him look younger than he is. "I'm always hungry."

Something in her chest twists. He looks too much like the smaller version of him. The boy who's now – again – an orphan. 

She heads out the door.

***

It takes her a while to find an open diner. The hotel room is empty when she shoulders the door open and sets the styrofoam containers on the small table.

Her blue blanket lies on the bed, half slid off.

"Cole?" she asks. The thread of panic tinting her voice is obvious even to her. It's unlikely that anyone has found him while she was out, but she can't be sure. "Cole!" 

She tears open the bathroom door without knocking, needing to check, needing to see that he's there.

"Right here," he says. 

Cole sits on the closed toilet lid, naked, bent over with his lower arms resting on his thighs, facing the tub. He doesn't look at her, makes no move to cover up. There are so many scars riddling his back.

"Cole, what are you – "

"Do you know when I last had a bath?"

It's not a question he expects an answer to, she can tell.

"2016. With Dad." He lowers his chin against his chest.

Cassandra thinks of Cole's father, dead in the alley behind the bookstore. A scream wants to climb up in her throat. She swallows it into submission.

"I think," Cole continues, "that was the last time I was clean."

"Felt clean," she corrects him.

"Was clean," he insists. "In every meaning of the word."

Silence hangs in the room like an oily fog.

"Cole …"

"I'm not sure I remember how it feels."

She's not sure if he means the bath, feeling clean, or having a father and she can't think about it too much or the scream will fight its way free. Cassandra breathes against the weight compressing her chest and steps forward into the bathroom. She opens the tap, turns the water to hot and finds the plug.

"Don’t let it run too hot," she cautions as she rises and turns to leave the bathroom. Her bones feel old. 

Cole looks at the tub like he’s trying to grasp the concept of that much hot water. 

"Are you okay?" 

He glances up briefly, then back at the tub, helpless. The muscles under his skin move as he shrugs.

"I’ll be outside if you need me," she says.

Cole freezes. His hand clamps around her wrist. "Stay." It’s a barely audible rumble. He looks up at her, his hair falling away from his face. "Please?"

Stay in here while he’s taking a bath, naked as mother nature made him.

Cassandra gives a shaky laugh. "What?"

"Please," Cole repeats.

"But you’re ..." 

"Naked. I know. I don’t care. Do you?"

She thinks while the water rushes in the tub. "No."

***

She washes his hair. Slow and methodically. It's meditative, almost, running her hands through his hair, working up the lather, pressing her fingers against his scalp the way she loves her hairdresser doing and watching him melt bonelessly into the tub.

Cole's eyes are closed. His lips are slightly open. His breath stutters as he fights it, but the suppressed moan slips out nevertheless. He's completely at her mercy now. She could drown him if she wanted. End all this. Get her life back to normal.

Under the soapy bubbles, she can see his body in the water, lithe, riddled with the angry scars of a violent life. His cock lies at half-mast in a nest of pubic hair turned darker by the water.

There's a hollow ache between her legs that she ignores. 

The man before her is a killer. Someone who has taken countless lives, without remorse and with. She's a doctor. She's sworn an oath to not do harm. It makes no sense that she feels drawn to him like a moth to a flame. It makes even less sense that he looks vulnerable now and that beyond the urge to slip her hand in the water and take what her body demands, the urge to protect him is so strong it scares her.

"Duck under," she tells him and he does, his head disappearing under the water up to his nose.

She rinses the shampoo from his hair, makes sure to massage his scalp some more to hear him make that breathless sound again. The foam obscures the lines of his body. She can't tell if what she's doing is affecting him beyond the luxury of touch.

He catches her hand, surfaces slightly and opens his eyes to look at her upside down. "Why are you doing this?"

He's not just asking about her washing his hair.

Cassandra shakes her head, moves her hand and places two fingers over his lips. 

His eyes close briefly, then open again. He moves her hand minutely. Presses his lips against her fingertips, one by one.

It's her turn to close her eyes. He doesn't need to see the tears forming in them.

"I brought you cheeseburgers," she says. Her voice sounds small.

A low groan of appreciation. "I think I love you."

She pulls her hand back.

"Cassie – "

"I'll get you the towel."

***

She drains his bathwater and takes a quick shower. Thinks about washing her hair but decides against it. It'll be enough to wash the day off, clean her skin if she can't clean her memory. They only have one bed and she doesn't want to soil it.

She leaves the bathroom with the towel wrapped tightly around her and retrieves underwear and her shirt from the bag of clothes.

He hasn't eaten yet; waited for her instead. Why that surprises her, she doesn't know. He makes an effort when he's with her; a far cry from the half-savage man she originally encountered, before she came to know him. With just the towel wrapped around his hips and his upper body naked, the chill of the A/C pebbles his skin and his nipples. Where it's free of scars, his skin looks soft.

She looks away. Hangs his jeans over the back of her chair and hands him the bag with the rest of the clean clothes.

When she comes back from the bathroom, fully clothed, the fries are limp and the burgers half-cold, but he eats like it's a blessing. He's put on the Henley, but his legs are bare. His hair's still wet and keeps slipping into his eyes. She doesn't finish her food. He clears her portion with a half-smile and the domesticity of it makes her want to crawl out of her skin, because it's too much like Aaron. 

Aaron, the traitor.

Thinking of him makes her flesh creep. She needs to do something. She can't do anything. It makes her want to ram her head against the wall.

Cole makes no fuss about only having one bed, but doesn't get under the covers.

He keeps a respectful distance from her, makes no attempts to get close to her and she … doesn't want that. She's well aware that having sex with him would be a monumentally bad idea, and despite the flash of awareness in the bathroom, she doesn't even want sex. It's just always been the easiest way to get herself out of her own head, and she can't, can't stand thinking about anything right now, all she wants is –

"Cassie."

He reaches out, but stops an inch before his hand touches hers.

She surges up, pushes him back and straddles him, making the bed creak. Her hair is like a curtain around them, shielding them from the outside world. In the dim light, his eyes are wide, his pupils blown out. She feels his cock stir through the thin material of his boxer briefs, grinds down against him, lowers her head to –

"What – " His throat clicks when he swallows. His hands ball into fists just to the side of her thighs. "What are you doing?" It's a throaty whisper, even lower than his usual voice. He shudders like he's using all his strength to hold back. His breath (fast, controlled) smells of the menthol in her toothpaste. Just like hers. 

It's too damn domestic. 

She can't _do_ this.

Her arms slacken, and she collapses against him. God damn it.

Cole fights down a single subdued whimper that would amuse her any other day, then his hands are there: large and warm between her shoulder blades and against the back of her head, holding her, shielding her, offering acceptance and human nearness. She claws one hand into his bicep and threads the other in his hair. His legs are furnace warm against hers. They're in the most intimate position and yet she begins to drift off. Her thought capacity is narrowed down to noticing a thread the washer must have pulled in his new shirt.

***

She wakes in the dark, unsure of the time and place and she thrashes, fights when she feels arms around her.

The contact ceases immediately. "Cassie, hey, easy." Cole. "Easy." _Cole_. "It’s just me."

She relaxes against the mattress, tries to control her breathing.

He’s quiet, doesn’t ask how she is. She’s grateful.

"I’m sorry," she says eventually. Her voice is bodiless in the dark.

"My fault," he says. "I know how it is. I shouldn’t have – "

His clothes rustle as he gestures in the dark.

It’s not. She’s not like him. He doesn’t have to worry about her. Doesn’t fight like a Scavenger expecting to have her throat slit if she falls asleep. She likes being touched. She’s not changing. It’s just ... It’s ...

"Want me to turn on the light?" Cole asks after a while.

Why are they even having this conversation? It’s dark, they’re alone and she’s only too aware of the chemistry between them. So why the hell are none of the usual mechanisms working?

"Cole – "

The mattress shifts as he moves to get up.

"You’ve never called me by my given name. Do you know that?"

Is his hand hovering over the light-switch? It’s still dark and the silence suggests he’s not moving any more.

"No one does."

"Jones does."

"I’m not her."

A snort of laughter. "Don’t I know that. I prefer the lack of cigarettes stinking up the place."

"How does she even get them?" Cassandra asks. They don’t even have hot water for showers, but Jones has cigarettes?

"I swear she has Project Splinter loaned to the black market." 

Another sound, a soft _shuff_. His hair moving against his shirt. It grew long over the last months. Eventually, he'll need a haircut. 

"That doesn't worry me, though. I fear the day the black market runs out. She’ll hunt them down."

He's expecting her to laugh, she can tell from the silence that follows and the catch in his breath. She doesn't. Her mind is occupied by what he didn't say. Eventually, they will run out. No time to grow tobacco when you’re starving. It gets easier to imagine it. Her future. Cassandra shivers.

Light floods the room. Sudden. Glaring. Painful enough she closes her eyes.

"Sorry."

"Stop saying that."

"I am, though." He clears his throat. "Sorry for dragging you into this mess."

"It seems like I would have ended up in it one way or the other." Besides, it's better to be two against the world than one.

"Maybe you'd have had a few good months. Maybe Aaron –"

She opens her eyes. Glares him into silence despite the light. "Shut the hell up, James Cole. Stop feeling sorry for yourself."

"For _myself_?" He genuinely looks offended.

"You're not really all that sorry for me. You're busy carrying the weight of the world because of some past sin you think you need to make up for. You're sorry for yourself and your mess of a life." She hates that. Hates that it's all about him suddenly, like she doesn't count. "You're not in this alone. I'm here too and it's my own damn decision. You don't get to take credit for that."

"Thanks for the empathy."

A beat. Another. _Empathy_. Anger rises like a tsunami. "Fuck you."

She's almost at the door, ready to go and never turn back to him. Find a way to solve this herself.

"Cassie." Her name is half plea, half shout.

The doorknob feels cool under her hand. "What?"

"Neither of us are perfect."

She snorts a bitter laugh. Turns the knob.

"Wait." He doesn't physically try to stop her, which is a relief. Even just his hand on hers would have had her out the door in the blink of an eye, never to return. 

"What for?"

"Listen, I never …" He runs his hand through his hair, but it falls right back into his eyes, stupidly soft. "I never learned how to express myself. I just learned to survive."

"All about you again, isn't it?" She doesn't want to be as acerbic as she sounds, yet she can't stop the sarcasm. There are too many "I's" in his sentences.

" _Fuck_ , Cassie." He doesn't ram his fist against the door. It's what makes her turn despite his raised voice. "I'm not perfect. I'm just me. I don't know how to be anyone but me." He's breathing hard, the motion of his chest making the buttons on his Henley go from matte to shiny. "But I know that I can't do this without you. We're better together. I'm better with you."

"Don't." She pushes her hand forward, against his chest, blocking out the reflection from the buttons. Pushes him away. "I'm not your saviour." She's made that mistake before. She's not going to make it again.

"That's not what I said." He moves toward the bed, sits down heavily. "I'm past saving. But I'm not past trying to be better. For…" His throat clicks as he swallows. "For you."

"Don't be better for me. Be better for yourself."

The right corner of his mouth kicks up. "I thought it wasn't all supposed to be about me?"

A sound escapes her throat and it takes her a while to realise that it's laughter. "Asshole." She rests her back against the door. Grins and watches him grin in return. Somehow, subtly, something changed. "You're an unbelievable asshole."

He takes a bow. "Good thing I'm pretty at least."

Cassandra gives up being angry and laughs. Laughs until she cries, until she slides down the door because her stomach hurts and her legs won't support her. He joins her and they end up sitting on the floor, laughing, crying, closer to hysterical than she's ever been before in her life.

His hair has fallen into his eyes again and she reaches up to push it away. Her hand lingers on his cheek, wiping away tears.

"What are we doing here, Cole?"

"Having a breakdown." He tips his head against her hand and rests his hand against hers, a warm frame. "We're due one, right?"

She's still giggling when she answers, "Yeah. We damn well are."

They breathe out of synch. She notices him slowing his to match hers.

"How are you?" she asks eventually.

He pauses, eyes narrowed a little as though trying to gauge her reasoning. "Tired." Narrowed eyes become closed eyes. His lashes are long enough she's almost envious. "So tired."

Cassandra allows herself to watch him: lines around and shadows under his eyes. Heavy eyebrows. An elegant nose. Stupidly soft hair and stupidly soft lips and it would be easy, so easy to just – 

"Up." She moves to her knees and tugs at his arm. "Come on, up."

"Are you throwing me out?" That look, from under lowered lashes again, just like before in the bathtub. It still gets to her. 

She fights her body's reaction and forces herself to roll her eyes. "Of course I am." She stands. Holds out her hand for him. "Move."

"Yes, Ma'am." He gets up the way a much older man would, weary and slow. "What now?"

She turns toward the bed. "Now, I'm putting you to bed."

"Not taking me." Damn, he's quick. 

"Would you want me to?" she asks, looking over her shoulder.

A short bark of laughter. "I think we both know the answer to that question." He holds her gaze, unwavering, letting her read everything she already knows. 

She's not in the mood to play coy, so she nods.

He reaches for her, finds her hand. Runs his thumb over her knuckles. "Much as I would love to sleep with you, right now, all I want is to sleep. One whole night through without waking up and reaching for a gun."

It's one of the most honest things she's heard in her life. "Come." She closes her hand around his and guides him to the bed. Gently coaxes him to lie down. He holds on to her hand when she tries to move toward the light-switch.

"I'm not going anywhere," she says and he lets go, reluctantly.

When the room is plunged into darkness again, she lies down next to him.

"I'm going to want to slap myself in the morning," Cole murmurs into the silence.

"I can do that for you, if it makes you feel better."

An amused huff, then the rustling of skin against sleek fabric. "If I wake up, I might …"

"You won't."

She hears him swallow in the dark, curls her hand around his and clarifies, "I'll watch over you."

Cole moves closer, presses his forehead against her collarbone, one warm point of connection in addition to his hand. His hair tickles her chin and slowly, slowly, she brushes a kiss against his forehead.

"Not going anywhere," she whispers again.

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to Auburn and Murron for their gentle and helpful beta-reading.


End file.
